Moldova: Hackathon-winning team invented an app to protect online community from trolls

Aimed to identify sources of manipulation in the new media and to isolate them, the TROLLESS application was officially launched on Monday, October 3.

The app is produced by one of the winning teams of the second “The Fifth Power” Media Hackathon organized by the Independent Journalism Center (IJC) in Chisinau, Moldova (a SEENPM member) and Deutsche Welle Akademie in July 2016.

The purpose of the app is to fight manipulation and disinformation via social networks. At the same time, the app will identify false profiles and trolling profiles and report them to Facebook.

TROLLESS allows reporting such users, so that the entire community can be warned about the activity of these profiles.

IJC has talked to netizens who think that the need for such a tool is strong in Moldova where, as they say, the public opinion is manipulated by people with false identities (usually stolen from VKontakte social network), who do propaganda for the current government. The Trolless app helps users differentiate between false identities and real people.

The team launched a video tutorial about how to install and use the Trolless app.

Users who have difficulties or suggestions for the implementation can contact the Trolless team on Facebook.

The second “The Fifth Power” Media Hackathon was realized as part of the “Strengthening Freedom of Expression in Moldova” project, implemented by the Independent Journalism Center with the support of Deutsche Welle Academie and funds from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany.

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SEENPM promotes excellence in journalism through policy initiatives, research and training in South East European countries. It aims to support the development of independent media and strengthen relations among journalists.

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